Crossroads
by NeverEvermore
Summary: What's the point? Everyone you love is either dead or dying. Death is inevitable. You finally find someone you care about, and they're taken from you... She's taken from you. Set after 4x13.
1. Crossroads

**Choices.**

_Beth… Beth… _

Her name was the only thing pushing him forward. He had exerted himself far beyond what he thought was possible, but he wouldn't—no_, couldn't_ stop, not when she was out there somewhere. He couldn't afford to rest.

_So he ran…_

He ran until the sun beamed high in the skies, and then _kept_ running. From night to day, day to dawn, he pushed forward, desperate to find the only person who knows the real him… He hated her for it. He closed her off at first, but she fought it, _damn did she fight_, and before he knew it they were sharing drunken stories over moonshine and burning down his old house.

He was stupid for thinking this time might be different. That they could stay together in that funeral home, that no harm would come to her…

_That he could protect her…_

He stopped, leaning over to dry-heave. If the walkers didn't kill him, dehydration would. _That would be the way to go in a zombie apocalypse. _He stayed in that position, too tired to move, hands painfully gripping his trembling knees as he thought about giving up.

_What if he can't find her? What if he finds her, but it's too late? What if-_

He mentally scolded himself, taking a deep breath before he pushed himself upright. _You can't afford to play the what-if game, Daryl. Move your ass._

His whole body ached. His head pounded. His feet throbbed. But he wouldn't stop until he found her and _killed _the bastard who took her from him. He clenched his fists as he thought about all the ways he could mess up the bastard's face…

Suddenly he stopped. His hands unclenched and his arms fell lifelessly to his sides as he stared forward in disbelief. The road splits off into two.

"No," he mumbled, voice cracking from dehydration. "_No. No, no, no, no, no…"_

He fell to the ground, eyes welling up with tears as he mumbled the same thing, over and over.

_He has to choose._

A/n: This is my first ever fanfiction—eep! I've spent countless sleepless nights reading random lots of fanfictions over the years, I figured it's time I contribute. I'm sorry I'm not very good, but I do hope someone gets some amusement and/or enjoyment out of it! Thank you for taking the time to click and read.

Lots of love,

Never Evermore

_*Disclaimer: __The Walking Dead__ in all its dead-gorey-glory belongs to Robert Kirkman, and the beautiful TV series is property of AMC (I think). These are just little mind-scrambles my infected brain puked out._

If you wish to read more, please comment/message and I'll see what I can do!


	2. Backlash

_**A/n: **__You are all so incredibly kind! I was SO surprised to see there were comments, and it took me 5 minutes to work up the courage to read them… I was shaking! This is the first time anyone has ever read what I've written. I wasn't expecting such nice things at all. Thankyouthankyouthankyou. I love you guys. Thank you for the encouragement, and I promise I'll work hard and get better at writing!_

_~ Never Evermore_

**Backlash. **

_How long have I been here? _She thought as she lay her head on the hard floor. It was cold and damp, the only sound that resonated through the pitch blackness was the chattering of her teeth. She couldn't remember how she got there. The last memory she has is Daryl…

_Oh, Lord! Daryl… Please, please keep Daryl safe Lord… _She prayed silently to herself as tears fell inaudibly to the ground. She needed to get out of here. She needed to find him and make sure he was safe. All those walkers… _Oh, Lord…._

Her prayers were abruptly interrupted.

_Screeeeeeeeeeeech._

Light fluttered into the room as a very large, very heavy steel door scraped across the stone floor. It opened slowly, screeching and scraping until it hit the wall with a _THUD. _Beth squinted as her eyes adjusted. Standing in front of the door was a silhouette of someone… _Walker! S_he mentally screamed as she fumbled around, pushing herself to her feet and searching for something—_anything_ she could use as a weapon.

Nothing.

_Lord, please, I don't wanna leave yet. Not when he's alone out there. Tell Daddy to wait for me._

She decided to make a run for it. Walkers are slow; she'll give it a kick and maneuver around it! She took a shallow breath, getting ready to run… Her mind was clear and ready for what was to come.

She leapt forward.

_WHACK. _

Her head lay flat on the stone floor. Somehow she had flung backwards.

_What in the name of…?_

The room spun around her, but it was at that moment she realized her feet were chained.

It was that same moment she heard deep, airy laughter as she drifted off into unconsciousness….


	3. Burn

**Burn.**

"Daryl," she grumbled, rubbing her eyes as lights flickered and buzzed. She sat up. A sharp pain shot up through her spine and into her head, leaving her dizzy and nauseous.

"Not quite, sweetheart," hummed a silky voice. Beth, forgetting the sharp pain throughout her body, shot upright from the hard floor beneath her, and staggered backwards as far as her chains would allow.

"Whoa now, careful love, wouldn't want you to get hurt…" He chuckled to himself, the very same airy laughter Beth heard before she passed out. The very same laughter she wishes she could forget.

"Who are you?" Beth choked out, fear and courage intermingled in one.

He looked at her and sighed, studying every part of her face and body. He ignored her question.

"You're beautiful," he stated calmly. He looked at her in much the same manner the walkers do, Beth noted. It sent shivers through her spine.

"L…Let me go… _Please,_" she begged, her head pounding as painfully as her heart.

He ignored her again, this time bringing a calloused hand to her face and cupping her cheeks in his palm. His eyes bore into hers. Her eyes full of fear, his full of something unfamiliar to Beth. She slapped his hand away suddenly.

Beth held her breath and closed her eyes, ready to be hit.

….

A few seconds passed like this, but nothing happened.

She slowly turned her head to his.

He sat there with the faintest hint of a smile, just looking at her and rubbing his hand softly.

Everything about his voice, his smile, it was all so _nice. _It unnerved her.

"Don't do that again," he said calmly, "or you'll meet the same fate your friend did."

"My… friend?" She asked, two and two not clicking together. _Does he mean Daryl? He can't mean… Oh, God, no. _Confusion and anguish, disbelief and despair all mixed into one overwhelming pile of emotion until everything shut down completely.

_He's gone…._

_I'm aint gonna see him again._

_Maggie… Glenn… _

_They probably met the same fate daddy did._

She thought these things, but couldn't feel. Shock, she assumed, had taken over. Or she had just given up. She knew this was all inevitable. She wrote in her journal every day, trying to convince herself that everything was okay, that one day, maybe not soon, but _one day _things would go back to how they were. That Daryl and Beth would find the rest of the group, and other survivors, and they would do just that—_survive. _That they could find another place like the prison. Someplace _safe._

But she knew that it was all a dream. Fabricated out of fear and longing.

_Shawn, Jimmy, Zach, Andrea, Lori… Daddy... Who knows who survived after we split. They're as good as dead…._

She knew it was only a matter of time before she lost Daryl, too… she just wasn't ready for it to happen so soon.

A single tear slid down her cheek as she looked up at the man.

"You're lyin'," she stated. She'd rather call him a liar than believe the alternative.

He smiled again. This time, a very dark, very toothy smile. His yellow teeth pointed in every each direction, and the cracks in his pasty white face stood out as the light from the door illuminated half of his face. His straggly, greasy blond hair stood in every which direction, and his black eyes burned with fire.

He brought his hand up to her face again, this time more aggressively, grabbing her face and pulling it towards his own.

"Wanna have some fun, bitch?"


	4. Medulla Oblongata

_**A/n. **__As tempted as I am to make a crossover between Supernatural and The Walking Dead, I won't. I will, however, giggle at the thought of Daryl summoning a crossroads demon. Thank you again, everyone! I know I've got a lot to learn, but I do hope you're getting some entertainment out of my mind vomit. Articulation isn't my strong suit, and I tend to get distracted VERY easily… writing takes me FOREVER. But I'll try to make longer chapters! Anyway, I love you all, and I really appreciate your CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. I will try my best to improve, and if I get stuck, I'll ask for help!_

_Hugs! 3 _

_~ Never Evermore_

**Medulla Oblongata.**

He didn't know where to turn. _Quite literally._ Every step forward shot him a thousand steps back. Recently—though he would never admit it—he started to believe there w_as _a God, the one Beth was always praying to. He wondered, on a number of occasions, whether Beth was really an angel, guiding him through and opening him up to a world of beauty.

Now he realizes she's quite the opposite.

She's a demon, entering in and burning him down.

Angel, demon, _whatever_.

All he knew was that without her, there's nothing in this world worth living for.

_Worth dying for._

"_Dammit_!" he yelled, punching his fists on the ground. Blood dripped from the raw flesh of his knuckles. He had been punching the ground in a fit of hysterics for quite some time now. His anger diminished and he collapsed completely, curling on his side and crying what little tears he had left.

_She'll die. You'll die. Just like everyone at the prison. Why'd you gotta go an' let yourself get close to people? Everyone you love dies. An' you can't do nothing—nothing about it. _

_Why couldn't I just leave the damn dog alone? _

_Beth…._

He sat upright and crossed his legs, placing his crossbow next to him as he wiped the tears from his eyes. He took a few deep breaths to clear his mind. As time passed this way, Daryl began to lose himself.

….

"Well look-it here," drawled a grey haired man with cowboy boots, cautiously yet confidently closing the distance between himself and Daryl. Five other men followed closely, forming a sort of circle around the outnumbered man. He didn't seem fazed.

Daryl was fast. No warning. Nothing. No one had time to react until the grey-haired man was already on the ground with a bloodied lip. Daryl had his crossbow on him. Everyone drew their weapons, getting ready to shoot at the slightest movement.

"DAMMIT HOLD UP!" growled the grey-haired man.

"I'm claiming the vest," another bow-man said. "I like them wings."

"Hold _UP," _he said again, this time with more authority. He wiped the blood above his nose and looked at it. Immediately—and unexpectedly to Daryl—he began to laugh. He was impressed. Impressed at his swiftness. His impulse. His _stupidity. _He liked Daryl. He had this air of self-sufficiency and rebellion that none of his other men had.

He stood up, wiping his nose again.

"A bowman," he said in between laughs. "Ah—I respect that. See, a man with a rifle, he coulda been some sort of photographer, or soccer coach back in the day. But a bowman's a bowman, through and through. What you got there, 150 pound draw weight? I'll be donkey-licked if that don't fire at least 300 feet per second…. I've been looking for a weapon like that. Course—I want one with a bit more ammo in it, and minus the oblongata stains," He said, shrugging his shoulders with a slight smile. "Get yourself in some trouble, partner? Pull that trigger, these boys are gonna drop you several times over…. That what you want?"

Daryl stayed silent.

"Come on, fella, suicide is stupid. Why hurt yourself when you can hurt other people? Name's Joe."

A few seconds passed this way.

Darkness began to consume him. Sadness was replaced with rage. Helplessness was replaced with the need for control. He wouldn't let Beth become the next Sophia. This time, he was doing things _hi_s way.

He lowered his crossbow.

"Daryl."


	5. Where Are You?

"_They are __**dead**_, they shall not live_; they are deceased_, they shall not **rise. **Therefore thou hast visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish." —Isaiah 26:14

_**Journal Entry: I**_

_I'm marking this as my first entry. I lost my journal back when I lost my bag, right now I'm writing in a bible I found in the drawer. I think I'm in a motel room now, only, it locks from the outside. Anyway. They moved me yesterday. I was locked in that dark room for what seemed like years… It was probably a couple weeks though. I tried fighting when they blindfolded me and someone hit me with something. I don't know what it was._

_I'm trying to be careful what I write in case someone finds this._

_He touched me. The blonde-haired man. He touched me in ways I never let any boy touch me. I learned after that not to get on his bad side. He only did it once, said something about wanting to fatten me up for next time. I don't know the other's names, and I never saw their faces. But sometimes, at night, I could hear a bunch of men in the room next to me, and another girl… Screaming, being thrown around... I wish I could feel some sort of sympathy or remorse, but all I feel is relief. Relief that it aint me._

_I know it's only a matter of time though._

_**Journal Entry: II**_

_It happened again._

_**Journal Entry: III**_

_I tried to run away. He got mad and hit me. I can barely see what I'm writing right now my eyes are swollen shut. Anyway, he's lucky there aren't mirrors in here. And not just because I don't wanna see my ugly face._

_**Journal Entry:**_

_Hi, Daryl._

_I know you'll never read this, cause even when you find me, I'm not gonna show this to you. But I wanted to tell you that it's okay. All the things they're all doing to me. It's okay. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. _

_**Journal Entry: IV**_

_Sometimes I wonder why God is punishing me like this. I know these are all challenges we're meant to overcome. But right now, though God's Word is here with me, and I have company every night, I feel so alone. I miss Daddy. I miss Maggie. Glenn. The Lil' Ass-Kicker, Rick, Carl… The list goes on. I would give anything to see their faces right now. But… the person I want to see more than anyone… I don't even know if he's alive._

The last line was crossed out and replaced with: _He's alive._

_**Journal Entry: V**_

_I can't sleep. I can never sleep. Every waking moment is a nightmare, and every sleeping moment is the same. I just want to die. I want to die._

_**Journal Entry: VI**_

_Where are you? I heard them talking, it's been over six months. Did you forget about me? It's okay if you did. I'm sure everyone else did too. I was holding out hope you'd find me here. I heard them saying we're leaving soon. North I think. They're in some sort of trouble. Don't have much time before they come back and take me, so this is it for now._

_Remember when I asked you what changed your mind?_

_I never did get to tell you something. I was gonna say it then, but I never got a chance. _

_You have good in you. Your heart. Deny it all you want, but it's there. _

_I've always admired and lo_


End file.
